A group of children watch the giant cranes operate during a boat tour of the Port of Oakland on Thursday, September 20, 2007. The Port provides free harbor tours one day a month from May to October. (Karna Kurata/The Oakland Tribune).

ABOARD THE ROYAL STAR – SLICING THROUGH churning waters, with the Bay Bridge on the left and towering oceangoing vessels on the right, this must be one of the best free rides around.

The Port of Oakland offers free harbor tours sailing past its territory, terminals and vessels once a month from May to October.

It seems an unlikely attraction — the daily hustle and bustle of the nation’s fourth-busiest port — but a portspokesperson said demand for the tours has grown so great since they were first offered in 2001 that port administration is considering adding tours. Reservations are required, but the tour is open to individuals and groups.

On a tour in September, several groups of students, seniors’ singles clubs and church associations boarded the Royal Star in front of the port’s offices at 100 Water St.

The ship, under the command of Capt. John Elkin, has space for 650 people “but we don’t go over 625,” lead deckhand Bruce McBride said.

The vessel, chartered from Blue and Gold Fleet, used to ferry cars back and forth from Catalina Island, McBride said.

But the tourists aboard that day had little interest in the vessel they were on; they were more interested in the vessels at dockside.

Oceangoing mammoths from the great names of shipping around the world — Hapag-Lloyd from Germany, K Line from South Korea, Matson of Hawaii, Maersk of Denmark, China’s COSCO, APL (formerly American President Lines and now owned by NOL of Singapore) — lined up at terminal after terminal.

The ships are a geography lesson in themselves besides what they teach about trade.

One passenger elbowed his brother-in-law and pointed to the containers on a German vessel. “That’s how I got my BMW, Hank,” he said.

The port began the program as an effort in community education and pays for the tours from its community outreach budget.

“We’ve always had lots of people who are curious about the port,” said spokesperson Joanne Holloway.

On each tour, a port spokesperson recounts the history of the port and the various terminals.

On that day in September, public affairs associate Laura Arreola told passengers that in 2005, $800 billion worth of goods came to the U.S. from overseas. Cargo worth $33 billion came through the Port of Oakland.

Leslie Aronson, a first-grade teacher from St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Oakland, told her 24 charges they could expect a writing lesson on their experiences when they return to the classroom.

Parents explained how the port’s huge gantry cranes were models for great white galumphing machines in George Lucas’ “The Empire Strikes Back.” Elementary school students Maria Rincon and Alexa Ingersoll were excited after a peek at the captain’s bridge.

“We got to see them drive the boat,” Alexa said.

Passengers gaped as a crane operator high above in a glass enclosed compartment lifted 20-foot long containers from the decks of vessels.

The Royal Star passed a mountain of scrap metal piled at the terminal of Shitzer’s Steel Co. Among the Port of Oakland’s largest exports, these twisted, broken ruins are the building blocks of every Hyundai, Toyota and Nissan automobile we buy here, Arreola said.

But for some the trip was the main draw.

“The kids are looking forward to riding on the boat,” said parent Wayne Christopher, a chaperone with the group from St. Paul’s Episcopal School. “I don’t think they care about the operation of the port very much.”

A historic downtown building that has been vacant since the Loma Prieta earthquake has been renovated and is open for new lessees.

Originally the Union Bank building when it was built in 1904, the building at 13th and Broadway fell into decrepitude after the 1989 earthquake.Today, the exterior of the building at 428 13th St. is completely refurbished, burnished with brass hardware. The building’s 11 floors will be leased or sold as condominiums to commercial and professional outfits. Three retail units are ready to rent on the Broadway side, as well. The units are partially finished, awaiting the needs of future tenants.Local businessman Mo Mashhoon, an investor in petroleum distribution and service stations, acquired the dark and dusty hulk of a building three years ago for $6 million. He said he spent more than $7 million rehabilitating the property.He also received a $50,000 grant from the Downtown Redevelopment Agency to help with the renovations.”I have some passion for historic buildings,” Mashhoon said, who has a history of renovating properties.In 2007, Mashhoon renovated the 19th-century Hanifin Block, a set of buildings at 19th Street and San Pablo Avenue in Oakland. The transformation — aided by a $20,000 grant from the city’s facade improvement program — added residential condominiums and six floors of commercial space.The Oakland Heritage Alliance commended Mashhoon for his $2.5 million rehabilitation of the Hanifin-San Pablo project, which included buildings dating back to 1901.The alliance is also pleased Mashhoon took on the 13th Street project.Alliance President Valery Garry said she was, “thrilled to see this skyscraper is being brought back to life.”She was especially impressed by the restoration of the original detail on the upper stories, including the arched windows on the 10th and 11th floors.Although the property has had more than one owner since the earthquake, none made any improvements on what Mashhoon now calls the “Mash Building” — derived from his business, Mash Petroleum Inc.Mashhoon completely gutted the building’s interior. Workers removed debris with wheelbarrows, entering the building from the outer scaffolding because the staircase and elevators had collapsed.Today, Italian marble covers the floors of the common areas of the more than 60,000-square-foot building. The 11 floors occupy 5,500 square feet apiece, and there is additional footage in the basement.Each unit of the Beaux Arts structure is outfitted with a kitchen, 20 phone lines and 20 computer lines, ready for new tenants to move in.”Generally the tenant has to bring in their own lines,” said Mashhoon’s real estate broker, Gary Bettencourt with LCB Associates.Mashhoon will charge tenants between the second floor and the penthouse from $1.25 to $1.65 per square foot, not including utilities and janitorial services. Comparable offices in the neighborhood charge between $1.85 and $3 per square foot, Bettencourt said.Mashhoon said he will raise the rates to be more in line with the competition after the building receives its first tenant. No tenants or buyers have made offers yet, Bettencourt said. However, Mashhoon said they were in negotiations with Starbucks and T-Mobile for the ground floor retail space.The building’s grand opening is scheduled for Feb. 22. Mashhoon’s previous success with the Hanifin Block project helped him secure funding from the city for the 13th Street project.”Mo said he was really interested in acquiring another building and wanted me to show him some properties,” said Brian Kendall, project manager with the city’s Downtown Redevelopment Agency. “I told him to buy this building because even though it’s been neglected, it’s a fantastic property with fantastic potential.” The Oakland Cultural Heritage Survey said the 13th Street property was Oakland’s first skyscraper and first steel-frame structure. During the 1970s, many of its tenants were nonprofits and federal offices supporting the government’s anti-poverty programs, according to Annalee Allen, an Oakland historian, Tribune columnist and city tour guide.”At that time it was referred to as the Unity Building,” she said.

OAKLAND — From his corner office at the Port of Oakland headquarters in Jack London Square, Omar Benjamin can keep tabs on the scurry of activity below.The terminals, huge ocean-going ships, trucks and Star Wars-like cranes at the port have been his dominion since he was appointed executive director last year.

But Benjamin’s background is not in transportation, it is in hospitality chains and hotel real estate. Possibly the one common thread between his hotel experience and the Port of Oakland is that he has always had to orchestrate the interests of diverse communities and clients.

“When I was appointed … I called for action,” he said.

That’s a directive the port — the fourth largest in the nation — will be fulfilling for a while, considering its challenges.

Before being named executive director, Benjamin served 10 years as the port’s director of commercial real estate — the smallest sector of the port’s operations. Aside from shipping operations, the port also maintains the Oakland International Airport, its largest installation.

A year into the job, Benjamin is just this side of effervescently expressing his prospects for turning the financial fortunes of the port around.

Truly, the port’s finances are in a pickle.

First, it costs importers, exporters and vessel owners more to use Oakland’s maritime terminals than it does to ship through ports in Southern California and Seattle.

To make matters even more challenging, Oakland’s port is repaying a lot of debt while revenue is not keeping pace with its needs.

Benjamin, however, is bullish on the port’s prospects. “It isn’t so dire as it looks because we have strategies in place,” he said.

Still, he acknowledged that changes must be made to improve operations at the airport and maritime facilities. The maritime side is facing the biggest challenges.

Benjamin has already made some administrative changes so shippers face less paperwork and fewer approvals to get the services they need.

In addition, the port is going to place a bigger push on marketing, adjusting its pricing and tailoring services to clients’ particular needs.

Port officials also hope a new maritime director will help turn fortunes.

James Kwon was president and chief executive officer of Total Terminals International in Long Beach until he was appointed maritime director of the Oakland port in September.

At TTI, Kwon increased total revenue by 250 percent — from $2 million to $10 million annually — and container volume by 30 percent for privately held TTI terminals in Long Beach, Oakland and Seattle.

Kwon said congestion at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is high and thinks Oakland could benefit from the overflow.

But it’s going to take a while to turn the Oakland port around. Oakland is losing in the competition for shipper traffic from California’s southern ports, as well as Seattle, in large part because those locations have easy access to rail routes, which helps facilitate ground shipping of products flowing into the ports.

A 1997 report to the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce said the port was not performing up to its full potential because transcontinental connections for rail and carrier transport was constrained. A remedy for these limitations has not been addressed, the report said.

The Oakland port — which Oakland officials often call the city’s “economic engine” — has poor rail connections through Donner Pass, Martinez and Tehachapi, the gateways the local cargo depends on.

Benjamin is hoping funds from a 2006 infrastructure bond will help fund construction of better connections, including raising the tunnel through Donner Pass to allow larger trains to pass through. Additional money could also help expand the single-track Tehachapi connection and improve tracks connecting Richmond and Martinez.

In November, the California Transportation Commission devised a formula to allocate as much as $840 million in bond money to the Bay Area and Northern California.

Still, Benjamin said, there is a lengthy application and approval process for the money, and it’s unknown how much money the port may receive — if it receives anything all.

The port also faces challenges regulating emissions from trucks that idle daily outside its gates. Neighbors have complained of higher rates of asthma, and activists say air quality is poor near the port. Port officials are working on a plan they say will help reduce emissions, although that plan — which calls on trucking companies to hire drivers rather than use them as independent contractors — is opposed by trucking companies.

Meanwhile, Benjamin said the airport, which draws 50 percent of port revenues, is also ripe for change.

“We have 15 million people moving through a facility built for 5 million,” said Benjamin, who has proposed improvements to customer service, roadways, and parking and terminal facilities.

Despite the challenges, he said the port is well-positioned to meet the future.

“I would be concerned if we were not taking a proactive approach about addressing the challenges we face and meeting the opportunities,” he said.

Early in his administration, however, some criticized Benjamin for being overzealous with some of his proposed changes. Now, though, those voices appear to have quieted.

“He has the capacity to create change,” said Commissioner Darlene Ayers-Johnson, an early critic.

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